First of a couple catch up posts

First, let me express much love to Sean at Houndstooth here in Austin. Sean talks about trying with his shop to "weave the pattern of coffee and people," and is starting, in my estimation, to do a great job of that. His first major outreach is a weekly free public cupping. Every Monday at 130, Houndstooth opens its doors, its grinders, and its coffee bags to all comers. I've run into no less than 2 independent roasters, as well as a dozen random new coffee fans. Its a great way for people to become acquainted with specialty coffee, but also to begin to build a lay-community of coffee lovers.

But I was actually onto something here that associates back my last message on the Yirgacheffe from Intelligentsia. Last week, we cupped 3 different Yirgacheffes, one of which was the Adado from Intelli. There was also a Yirgacheffe from Verve and one from Dallis Coffee (being repped by all-around coffee geek and good guy Dan Streetman). No doubt these were all great coffees, very fun to drink. But this quick comparo really reinforced my previous notes about the Adado. For whatever reason, be it Terroir, roast, processing, the Adado really distinguished itself from the others. The Yirgacheffe from Dallis and Verve lacked the amazing lime forwardness that the Adado showcases.

This prompted a discussion about what exactly effects flavor more, the bean, the processing, or the roasting. Dan made the point that Intelligentsia's faster roasting methods may cause the internal bean temperature, and there for roast level, to be inherently lower for a given degree of roast than Verve's low heat ultra-slow roasting method. This lower degree of roast would have the effect of increasing acidic tastes, and therefor lead to a brighter cup in general. I'm not sure I'm one hundred percent convinced, but I'm certainly interested in cupping another same region group from the same roasters against one another.

Intelligentsia's Ethiopea Yirgacheffe Adodo

Photo (c) IntelligentiaCoffee
Few coffees have just completely changed my mind about a region, and I have a hard time paying over $15 a lb for coffee, but hurray for the Adodo from Intelligentsia. I've had quite a few Yirg's over the years, and it's one of those coffees that everyone (even 3rd and 4th tier roasters) get all excited about. I don't disagree that in general its fun, fruity and yummy, but I've never got the WOW factor. Until last Sunday that is.

Cupping the Yirg Adodo:
The first thing you notice is that these beans are very small and compact. The varietal is listed as "indigenous" which means very little. To put it in perspective, the beans are approximately 1/4 the size of the Geisha beans.

The dry aroma is very particular. First in the nose is bitter herbs, followed by the distinct scent of grape soda.

The break and wet smell is classic African: berries, dried cherries, with the distinct and interesting smell of candied fruit.

The first sip lets you know this is an extremely acidic coffee, a citrus bomb. The first flavor to show up is fruity pebbles, followed by lime, like a popsicle. This coffee cools into dark cherry pie and chocolate mousse. How lovely!

This coffee has been the first to benefit from my new Hario V60 pourover and Range Server. So much of coffee is coffee jewelry, but I really have enjoyed this V60, and Alyssa says its "really pretty." Here it is pressed into service Wednesday morning. This coffee really shines as pourover. I'm coming around to the pourover as a method for making coffee, though I've learned it takes a very steady hand and care in production. My current method is this: Grind 30g of coffee to fine, use my espresso machine to wet the filter, use water slightly off a boil. Carefully cover the coffee and once fully saturated allow it to bloom for 25 seconds. Once 25s passes, slowly pour around the edge and towards the center, I believe this helps to even out top/bottom extraction. I need to find an extractmojo in Austin to see if there is any accuracy to this theory.

As a pourover, the lime forward flavor remains, but is accompanied and followed by a substantially more mellow caramel and toasted marshmallow flavor. I loved this coffee so much as a pourover in fact, that I never got around to making it as a siphon. I did, however, make it as an espresso. As an espresso, that lime wasn't just forward, it was explosive, overpowering and downright shocking. It was smooth, but frankly, hard to drink. Not so with milk however. Accompanied with 3.5 oz of carefully stretched milk, this lime-forward yirg made a fantastic cappuccino. Chocolate and velvety, with a creamy flavor and aftertaste of the fruity pebbles that showed in the cupping.

Overall, this was a really fantastic coffee that changed my opinion about how exciting the world's favorite coffee is. This has been the best summer for coffee in a very long time!

Linea, ugly name beautiful coffee

Let me introduce you to my espresso machine. This particular machine was built in Fiorenze,
Italy in April of 2004. It served 2 miserable years in a "Jumpin Juice and Java" from 05-07 where then sat dormant until I rescued it in April of 08. Upon bringing it home, I learned that it had not been descaled since new, and had not had a water softener attached to it ever. I disassembled the entire machine down to the frame, soaked the boilers and all metal parts in citric acid and reassembled it. At the same time I upgraded the 2 group heads to the same technology used in Marzocco's GB5 which was the state of the art at the time. The advantage of the so called "Piero" group caps is that roughly 14 inches of tubing is removed, thus dramatically increasing thermal stability. Its also very cool to say you upgraded your group heads. I then replaced the machines temperature control devices with "PID" controllers. Unlike the stock thermostat, which controlled temperature in a 10-15 degree swing, the PID uses advanced industrial algorithms to control temperature down to about 1 degree Fahrenheit. This dramatically improves shot to shot consistency and makes it easier to control other aspects of coffee production. More coffee toys to come!

An introduction to one of my devices, and a gift from the coffee gods

This arrived, kindly, by Fedex last week. A box full of fantastic coffee goodies. On the bottom are two replacement bowls for a Yama 5-cup siphon brewer. These are exceptionally delicate, and with a cramped kitchen they fall victim to simple mistakes. Also included are a new 2-serving Hario v60 pour-over brewer and a 2 serving v-60 range server. This Japanese glass company goes a long way towards making coffee chic, love it! Also are a side taste of some paper pour-over filters, and more exciting a FLANNEL filter! This lets a lot of the yummy oils that paper filters remove make it into the cup. Very excited to try this.